While crime may be the quarterback of issues being talked about for the mayor's race, it's important not to forget the hard-working and underappreciated offensive lineman. And before this analogy gets out of control, let's turn the discussion towards education.
The news pivot for this is this article in today's New York Times about the trend in big city school districts away from middle schools (typically 6th to 8th grade) and towards elementary schools (K-8). In New York, many schools are even reorganizing to become 6th through 12th grade high schools. Paul Vallas and the School District of Philadelphia are featured prominently in the article due to Mr. Vallas' belief in the inadequacies of the middle school system. To wit:
Paul Vallas, chief executive of the Philadelphia school system, thinks so, and he has closed 17 traditional middle schools since 2002, while converting some three dozen elementary schools into K-8s. “The fifth to sixth grade transition is just too traumatic,” he said. “At a time when children are undergoing emotional, physical, social changes, and when they need stability and consistency, suddenly they’re thrust into this alien environment.”
This would seem to make perfect sense. I, myself, am the product of a K-8 (1-8, actually) education. In fact, some would say it seems that that's the only education I received. I know it worked for me but at the same time, I went to a suburban parochial school with the same 30-35 kids for 8 years. However, as you may know from some of the things I've written about the candidate's crime plans, I'm also a sucker for statistical evidence. So my faith in K-8 was rattled when I saw this:
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that students at Philadelphia’s established K-8 schools outperformed students at traditional middle schools, but that those schools had fewer poor and minority students and more experienced teachers, which could have largely explained the results.
In Philadelphia’s newer K-8s, which are more similar demographically to the city’s middle schools, students performed slightly better than at middle schools, but those advantages were not always statistically significant.
“The bump in student achievement that administrators may achieve in converting to K-8s may not make as big a difference as they would hope for,” said Vaughan Byrnes, one of the Johns Hopkins researchers.
WHYY's Stephanie Marudas actually had a story on this morning about this very study and included the reaction of the school district.
What, you might ask, does this have to do with the mayor's race? This specific part of the "education issue" might not have that much to do with it besides being yet another thing on which any candidate for mayor should be expected to have an opinion. My point in bringing this up is that as I set about writing this post, I noticed that among all of my various blog categories I had nothing for "schools" or "education." Have we gotten to the point, with the state takeover and the School Reform Commission, that we don't expect the next mayor to say much about education aside from whether they like Paul Vallas or not?
Well, I certainly don't think so. Stay tuned as we at The Next Mayor build our Education Issues content. I don't want to go into too many details but we have been in touch with some folks who have made it their mission to bring education (as an issue) into the mayor's race. Until then I encourage you to check out some of the videos from our Community Forums, during which it became clear that no matter what power the mayor has over the schools on paper, folks still expect the buck to stop with him. These videos are on Youtube for universal viewing here, here, here, and here.
Comments (60)
While I went to (Catholic) school with the same kids throughout my entire pre-college education, we were all moved to a different building, which students referred to as "El Gallinero" (the chicken coup), for 7th and 8th grades. I must say that, while seeing the same faces in class helped, the higher grades were full of "older kids" that I'd never seen before. There were also various "rituals" that these older kids would subject us new kids to like the so-called "sala burrera" in which a group of older kids would surround one or more new kids and all slap them on the head with their open palms. I must say I was very relieved to be back at the main school building in 9th grade. I think the presence of the younger kids, along with (mostly) more mature kids who were close to graduating (that particular school was actually K-12) had a positive influence on behavior in that building.
Personally, I think that statistical information is extremely incomplete and, if anything, sounds somewhat encouraging. For instance, when and why did those older K-8s become K-8s? Were they good or bad schools before becoming K-8s (assuming they weren't K-8 from the beginning)? Did the neighborhoods they're in attract higher class students because the schools were better? The more recent K-8 conversions are already at least "slightly" better than the middle schools, so will they be "a lot" better down the road when they, too, become "established" K-8s? It might be worth following what happens over the next few years to try to get a better picture of what's going on (anybody looking for PhD funding?).
Posted by Dave![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://blogs.phillynews.com/dailynews/nextmayor/nav-commenters.gif)
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January 22, 2007 12:54 PM
Not very long ago, "progressive" educators were singing the praises of dismantling "jr. high schools" and creating "middle schools." The rationale was that developmentally, kids of middle school years were distinct from both younger and older kids, and needed an environment specifically adapted to their needs - where they would have an gradual adjustment from elementary school style education to high school style education (for example, shifting slowly into having different teachers for different subject matter).
I find it pretty amusing that now, supposedly, there is evidence that the concept of middle schools, in itself, is a problem. Without having read the studies, I can imagine huge problems with trying to prove such an assertion. Sure, maybe the K-8 schools would get even better as they get better at what they do - but on the other hand, maybe the statistically insignificant better results from the new K-8 schools (the ones controlled in the study for resources, that is) was mostly due to the fact that they were new schools, and as a result, had an energetic student and faculty? And further, with no transition period of a middle school, it would stand to reason that kids going from a K-8 school to a high school would have an even more traumatic adjustment than those going from a middle school to a high school. So, any studies on the issue would also need to measure the outcomes for students as they continue through high school. And, how were the evaluations made? Test scores? What about dropout rates? Attendance figures, etc.?
I would look, instead, to whether there are other reasons for Vallas' support for the K-8 concept. Given that from what I've seen he doesn't usually justify his policies on the basis of pedagogy, but instead on PR and on certain economic rationale, I don't see why he'd change his policy-evaluation practices all of a sudden.
While I think that the Mayoral candidates' positions on education will be important, I'd have to see a more thorough analysis of K-8 schools vs. middle schools before I'd consider a candidate's position on that particular issue to be of relevance.
Posted by D.E. II | January 22, 2007 4:56 PM
Here you go (from the article):
"Still, some middle school experts argue that school reconfiguration is a costly distraction from what adolescents really need: smaller classes, an engaging curriculum, personalized attention and well-prepared teachers. “Creating schools with varying grade configurations, K-8s and 6-12s, will not guarantee that middle-grades teachers and students will be successful,” said Patrick Montesano, who runs a national middle school improvement program at the Academy for Educational Development, a nonprofit organization."
That comment seems to me to be one of the most valid comments in the article. The article also points out that one of the reasons to create the different configurations is that middle school-aged students need lower teacher to student ratios (because they have more behavioral and emotional needs). Having taught all three age groups - I would agree.
If creating 6-12 schools would lower teacher student ratios for 6-8th graders, then I would hope that all Mayoral candidates would support such a move. However, I don't see how changing configurations could uniformly change teacher/student ratios. Wouldn't a lower ratio for some grades necessarily mean a higher ratio for others?
Posted by D.E. II | January 22, 2007 5:10 PM
The big education question for the mayoral candidates is would they take back control of the city schools from the state.
The general consensus is that Fattah would certainly try. There's already a committee -- I'm forgetting the name -- that he formed to explore this.
Posted by BTS | January 23, 2007 9:33 AM
You can make fun all you want, and you may be right about it costing more than it's worth. However, I think you underestimate the value of going to school with people you've already forged relationships with for a longer period of time. When teenagers end up in situations where they don't know anybody and feel inclined to prove themselves to everyone else is when they are most likely to do stupid things in order to get attention or "earn respect," like having/using a gun or getting into a fight. This is especially the case for urban kids who lack good role-models in their lives.
Posted by Dave![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://blogs.phillynews.com/dailynews/nextmayor/nav-commenters.gif)
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January 23, 2007 7:46 PM
Dave -
I agree that thinking of the problems with the transition is important, However, these fads in education rarely deal with the substantive issues in a comprehensive way. The point is that middle schools were created specifically to provide an appropriate transition period for kids with different developmental needs and kids in elementary school and kids in high school.
Maybe it does make more sense to have K-8 schools - I doubt it - but I think that as the article says: "reconfiguration is a costly distraction from what adolescents really need: smaller classes, an engaging curriculum, personalized attention and well-prepared teachers"
And I'd much rather see Vallas expend all resources available focusing more specifically on those targets
Posted by D.E. II | January 24, 2007 9:30 AM
"So Fattah is in favor of giving up school funding?"
No, Dave.
The City funds about 80% of the schools budget, the state (or commonwealth, if we're getting technical) funds 10-15% and the feds kick in the rest. The percentage of dollars the City receives from PA didn't change when the School Reform Commission was created in 2001. (In fact, PA ranks nearly last in terms of percentage of overall school funding.)
So what City, and therefore mayoral, control of the schools would mean, in the larger pciture, is that the mayor is involved and accountable for the schools in a way he currently is not. (See New York and Chicago as examples of mayoral control.) Funding, however, is still, and will always be an issue, regardless of who gets to appointed the school district leaders.
And all of this is not an endorsement of Fattah. He's simply the only one of the candidates who has at least considered the possibility of bringing the schools back under City leadership.
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